Intra-oral scanners are often designed to have a tip and a main body, where the tip enters the patient's mouth during a scanning and several components of the scanner, such as light source and image sensor, are placed in the main body. Examples of commercially available intra-oral scanners include the 3shape TRIOS, the Cadent Itero and the Sirona CEREC intra-oral scanners.
When used for intra-oral scanning a scanner and especially its tip which must be cleaned after use to avoid the risk of transferring diseases from one patient to another. WO2013132091 describes a tip for an intra-oral scanner where a mirror provides that the probe light from a light source in the main body of the scanner is projected onto the scanned object and light returning from the scanned object is projected onto the image sensor in the main body. The tip can be removed from the main body of the scanner and can be cleaned by autoclaving such that the tip can be reused without risk of transferring e.g. bacteria from one patient to the next.